Billy Joel, who returns to Quicken Loans Arena on Tuesday 20 years after playing the first concert in the building then known as Gateway Plaza Arena, introduces Middleburg Heights native Michael Cavanaugh at a 2002 concert. Cavanaugh was nominated for a Tony Award for his Broadway portrayal of The Piano Man in "Movin' Out,'' which was based on Joel's music.
(Ed Betz, AP file)

If you have a favorite memory of Middleburg Heights native - and Billy Joel protege - Michael Cavanaugh, share it in the comments below.

PREVIEW

Billy JoelWhen: 8 p.m. Tuesday, April 1.Where: The Q, East Sixth Street and Huron Road, Cleveland.Tickets: $49.50-$119.50, plus fees, available at the box office, online at theqarena.com and livenation.com, at Discount Drug Mart locations or by phone at 1-888-894-9424.

Barely into his teens, the Middleburg Heights native said from his current home outside Las Vegas, he was playing keyboards and singing in Cleveland bars and clubs such as D’Poos, Fagan’s, Rumrunners, the Sly Fox and the Lampliter.

“I was playing in Top 40 bands,’’ he said. “That was the thing in the ’80s, playing what was on the radio. But I would break format every set and play a ballad.’’

And what was that ballad?

Well, DUH!

“I went to the Billy Joel thing a lot – ‘She’s Got a Way’ or ‘Honesty,’ ” he said. “It was cool that people thought I was this little teenage kid playing Billy Joel.’’

Turned out to be good training. Joel himself caught the then-grown-up Cavanaugh’s act in Vegas and recruited him to play The Piano Man character in the Twyla Tharp-helmed Broadway musical based on Joel’s music, “Movin’ Out.’’

For more than a thousand performances, Cavanaugh WAS Billy Joel, and he did it so well that he received a Tony nomination for best featured actor in a musical. His was one of 10 nominations in the 2003 Broadway season. The show itself won two Tonys. Tharp took one home for best choreography, and Joel and Stuart Malina won for best orchestration.

Joel is returning to Cleveland on Tuesday, April 1, to mark the 20th anniversary of the very first show at what’s now Quicken Loans Arena (and in 1994 was Gateway Plaza Arena).

Joel declined to do press ahead of the show, so I figured the next best thing was to talk to the guy who had to get inside his head for 28 or so songs a night over the course of three years.

It turned out that slipping into Joel’s skin didn’t start with “Movin’ Out,’’ or even with those gigs at those clubs in the Flats and North Olmsted and Parma Heights.

“The first [Billy Joel] song I remember playing was ‘Still Rock and Roll to Me,’ ” Cavanaugh said. “And the first album I got that was MY album, I got in the third grade: ‘Glass Houses.’

“I remember bringing it to school, and I was so excited,’’ he said. “We had just gotten a piano about a year before that, and I was learning how to play and sing songs by ear. I remember working on that song. ’’

When he went to his very first piano lesson, his teacher said she understood he played by ear and asked what he could do, and he launched into “Still Rock and Roll to Me.’’

“Ironically, that was the first song in ‘Movin’ Out,’ ” Cavanaugh said.

So how does a guy go from a club like the Lampliter to a piano bar in a Vegas casino to Broadway?

“I got to know Billy Joel’s tour manager, Max Loubiere, and we did a lot of work together,’’ said Cavanaugh.

“I had no idea Max was going to bring Billy to the piano bar to hear me,’’ Cavanaugh said. “Then when I knew for sure, I go to the back of the casino, man, and there he is, walking towards me.

“He was so cool right away, and said, ‘Hey, are you Mike? Tell me about this gig you’re doing’ – and we start walking towards the piano bar,’’ Cavanaugh said.

“By this time, the whole place knows he’s coming and starts screaming, so I turn to him and say, ‘Just so you know, they weren’t screaming for you, they were screaming for me,’ ” Cavanaugh said, chuckling at the memory of Joel bursting into laughter.

That quip was the beginning of an ongoing friendship.

When that happened, “Movin’ Out’’ was primarily in Tharp’s hands, and Joel told her he had a good contender for the Piano Man role – Cavanaugh.

But nobody – not even Billy Joel – TELLS Twyla Tharp what to do. Twelve days after 9/11, Cavanaugh auditioned for Tharp and the investors . . . and got the gig.

“I wasn’t trying to ‘be’ Billy Joel, but I was trying to be ‘The Piano Man,’ who is basically the narrator through song in the show,’’ Cavanaugh said.

But the truth is, when he sings Billy Joel songs, he DOES sound like him.

“I grew up listening to it, so it’s so much in my blood that it comes out,’’ said Cavanaugh, who’s currently playing with major symphonies and orchestras throughout the nation, doing the works of Elton John and others, such as James Taylor, Paul Simon and Neil Diamond. Those shows prompted Billboard to dub him “the new voice of the American Rock ’n’ Roll Songbook.’’

Though he’s branched out to include other artists, there obviously is a special place in Cavanaugh’s heart for Joel, and especially for his songwriting.

“His feelings run deep,’’ said Cavanaugh. “When you’re a rock star and you have the spotlight shining on you and have people writing about you – good and bad – you have to have a thick skin to survive.

“But when he writes, the thick skin goes right away,’’ he said. “It’s amazing how he does that. As a writer, if you hold back, nobody’s going to believe you. Billy told me writing is painful, and I agree with him.

“It IS painful, because you’re putting your heart on the ground for people to love it or stomp on it,’’ said Cavanaugh, who also has a growing catalog of originals.

When you have a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and Grammy winner as a friend, it’s smart to pick his brain about the art of songwriting, and Cavanaugh has.

“To him, the most important thing is melody,’’ Cavanaugh said. “It’s funny because his lyrics are so amazing, but he always writes the music first, then he writes the lyrics.’’

What’s more, the words come from real life – either his own or that of friends. Because of that, they resonate with people today as well as they did the first time.

“His music, like the music of the Beatles, really is timeless for its lyrical content, and musically, it’s great stuff on another level,’’ Cavanaugh.

And that’s why America, like his friend Michael Cavanaugh, loves Billy Joel “Just the Way You Are.’’

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